PODCAST · arts
Cascadian Prophets
by Paul E. Nelson
Interviews with Cascadian creative luminaries about the practice of poetry and deepening connections to place, self and the present moment.
Episodes
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Interview with Mary Norbert Körte (pt 2)
This is part 2 of a multi part interview. Listen to part 1 here. After an initial interview, former Catholic Nun Mary Norbert Körte requested a follow up discussion because she felt she had been too harsh on her family. With the fire crackling in the background, she elaborated on the topic,...
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Tim McNulty on the 4th edition of Olympic National Park: A Natural History
This interview with Tim McNulty on the 4th of edition of Olympic National Park: A Natural History was recorded Sunday, October 28, 2018, at the home of Tim & Mary McNulty, Lost Mountain, WA. The Poet and Nature Writer lives in these mountains and with these mountains. Read the 4th edition of...
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John Brehm 1955-2026
Death of Portland poet John Brehm and a re-posting of the 2022 interview of him conducted by Paul E Nelson
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“Tell Clyfford I Said ‘Hi’”: Exhibition Curated by Children of the Colville Confederated Tribes
Nicole Cromartie and Katie Watson-Best of the Clyfford Still Museum are interviewed about" “Tell Clyfford I Said ‘Hi’”: An Exhibition Curated by Children of the Colville Confederated Tribes.
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Joyce Tsai Interview (Director of Clyfford Still Museum)
Interview with Joyce Tsai, Director of the Clyfford Still Museum, on his life and work.
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In Honor of David McCloskey “The Father of Cascadia”
David McCloskey passed away on July 3. In honor of his lifetime of work to create and spread a culture that was deeply connected to the Cascadian bioregion, Cascadian Prophets, which owes more than just its name to his work, want to share this interview from October, 2013. Find it transcribed on...
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Lulu Zilinskas on Clyfford Still’s Astrology
Clyfford Still's Astrology by Lulu Zilinskas, an archivist and intuitive practitioner utilizing astrology and tarot. She currently serves as the archivist and manager of digital collections at the Clyfford Still Museum and discusses the aspects of astrology that possibly affected the life and…
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Michael Holloman on Clyfford Still in Cascadia
Michael Holloman (AKA M. Yellowbear) is an enrolled member of the Confederated Tribes of the Colville Indian Reservation, located in Northeastern Washington State. A tenured Professor in the Department of Art at Washington State University in Pullman, he discussed Abstract Expressionist legend...
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Phyllis Curott on Witch Crafting
Phyllis Curott is a Wiccan High Priestess, lawyer, author, and spiritual pioneer. This archival interview from November 2001 was about the growing popularity of religions like Wicca and why they weren't just popular to begin with. She touched on the origins of the propaganda against witches as...
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Interview with Finn Menzies
This interview with Finn Menzies is an archival interview from November, 2017. Finn Menzies is an out transgender teacher in Seattle, WA. His work is his spiritual practice and his activism. He received his MFA from Mills College. He is the creator of FIN Zine, a bi-annual zine dedicated to his...
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Wang Ping on the Kinship of Rivers
If you were to give the third or fourth longest river in the world a wish, it might simply to run free or to be clean and pure again. In the summer of 2013, the world's third longest river, the Yangtze, will get 2,000 wishes in a program called the Kinship of Rivers. The 2,000 will be done…
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Deborah Poe on “flagging the apocalypse pageantry”
How does one make literary art about this time in history that avoids rhetoric and facile political positioning in this era of the spectacle? How does one avoid being consumed by the simultaneous collapse of so many systems -- some being eviscerated by people in positions designed to protect such...
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Zhang Er on First Mountain
Sam Hamill wrote in his final book blurb: “Zhang Er brings us startling 'burial ground poems' from Chinese that are striking in their perspective and elegant in style and presentation. They represent a poetic sensibility that is unique and often profound, and I read them with great surprise and...
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Aldon Nielsen on Choruses for Gil Scott-Heron
Aldon Lynn Nielsen says the time is right to say it straight, Gil Scott-Heron should be recognized as an important writer. As the George and Barbara Kelly Professor Emeritus of American Literature at Penn State University, specializing in, among other things, African American poetry and poetics,...
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Interview with Mary Norbert Körte
Open the anthology Women of the Beat Generation to page 256 and read the words of Brother Antoninus, William Everson, who said, "A series of women poets emerged in San Francisco who identified with the establish Beat Poets even as they challenged them on their grounds, including Joanne Kyger and...
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Lorin Medley On the Way to Kluusms
On the Way to Kluusms is the first poetry chapbook to be published by Watershed Press, a bioregional press based in Seattle, but with strong connections to Vancouver Island. The author is Lorin Medley, whose poetry has been published in anthologies like Winter in America (Again, Cascadian Zen...
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Ian Boyden and Sam Hamill on Habitations
On November 10, 2012, Sam Hamill and Ian Boyden joined together to do an interview on Hamill's chapbook Border Songs, as well as Habitations, a collaboration between the poet, Sam, and the painter, Ian. Fewer than a dozen copies were made of the book, although in the interview Boyden recommends…
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Bill Barillas on Theodore Roethke
In this edition of Cascadian Prophets, we hear Bill Barillas on Theodore Roethke. Bill Barillas is the editor of A Field Guide to the Poetry of Theodore Roethke and serves on the board of The Friends of Roethke Foundation. Check out more of what the Lab does here, and listen to more current and...
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Thom Hartmann on the theft of Human Rights via corporate personhood
In this interview with Thom Hartmann on the theft of human rights via corporate personhood and its history, he discussed the East India Company, the Boston Tea Party & an 1886 Supreme Court decision, Santa Clara vs. Southern Pacific that was twisted to give corporations human rights. He went on…
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Jan 2, 2026 Interview with Cornelius Eady on Proof
You’d expect poetry to be part of an event inaugurating such a figure and that the poem offered for the occasion would be bland, written by a committee, or full of platitudes, but the poem delivered yesterday matched perfectly the tone of a campaign that appears to be built on mutual respect,...
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Trevor Carolan on Making Waves: Reading BC and PNW Literature
If artists are the antennae of the race, then the poets and writers of British Columbia are onto something that the general populace may be ready to recognize and act on. That is the West Coast of the U.S. and that of Canada has more in common with each other than with the power centers back…
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Gary Copeland Lilley on Raven on the Moaners’ Bench
"The first pew in the old time Black church is the Moaners' bench." - Gary Copeland Lilley Artificial intelligence and it's racist assumptions suggests "mourners' bench" as a clarification, but the moaners' bench refers to the audible expression of those in spiritual need due to grief, the blues,...
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Tess Gallagher on Surrounded by Weasels and Josie Gray
To preserve a bit of one's art is a true act of love, even if the book of stories it comes out of is titled Surrounded by Weasels: Stories from the Northwest of Ireland. The late Josie Gray is the story teller, and his widow Tess Gallagher, the world renowned poet, is the editor...
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In Memory of Jack Foley
This interview is brought to you in memory of Jack Foley, who passed away earlier this month at the age of 85. The interview is with Jack and his wife Adelle, who were poets from Oakland, California.
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Vodou Visions with Sallie Ann Glassman
In this interview on her book Vodou Visions with Sallie Ann Glassman, she discusses becoming a Manbo, or Vodou Priestess, Vodou, its history as a religion created by enslaved Africans, common misunderstandings about it...
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Linda Russo on the verdant
Linda Russo is a poet, scholar, essay writer, willing co-creator, collaborator and student of ecospheric care. Through the lens of ecofeminism, or geopoetics, or inspired by indigenous practices of interspecies kinship, her works explore relationality, with a more than human world alongside the...
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A Salish Perspective on Wellness with Beaver Chief
Hear a Salish perspective on wellness with Beaver Chief. Fred Beaver Chief Jamison was a spiritual leader who brought out the traditional teachings of the Northwest Coast (Native American) Salish people. He discussed his heritage, the songs and stories that are part of the Shaker Indian Doctor...
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Stephan Torre in Atlin, B.C.
What a great way to entice someone to read a book: "Like a prize-fighter boxing over his weight, Stephan Torre has long made his home in the wilderness, negotiating environments that are hostile...
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Interview with El Habib Louai at Desolation Peak
On the morning of Wednesday, August 14, 2013, Habib and Paul Nelson awoke before 6A and were hiking with full packs up to “Jack’s Shack." But after an hour, maybe less, they knew they were not going to make it with those heavy packs.
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Sharon Thesen “…off on an angle”
The 9th Cascadia Poetry Festival is happening October 10-12th, 2025 at the Rainier Beach Community Club. One of the featured poets is Sharon Thesen, a legendary B.C. poet who considers herself a "Cascadian poet."
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Peter Levitt on Translating Cold Mountain
The latest and perhaps most complete translation of Han Shan has been done by Levitt in collaboration with Kazuaki Tanahashi and published by Shambhala Press.
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Writing Resistance: Winter in America (Again Contributors
Four contributors to Winter in America (Again discuss how they respond as writers without resorting to rhetoric or invective. The outrages, for any person of conscience in the United States in the trump 2.0 era, almost come hourly. Many warned of a constitutional crisis were we to find ourselves…
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Matt Trease Interview (The Outside)
A couple years back I steered a kayak over the stone remnants believed to be of that dammed weir and felt the tears of Southwind and his grandmother that broke the spell of ice and separation. In a moment I felt that wheel turning me, releasing the grief over my own people, still a mystery to me...
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Sam O’Hana on How to Support Working Class Poets
When I said that what's good for general society is also good for poets, I'm talking about a series of cultural opportunities where a much wider stretch of people are allowed to take the opportunity to become writers. I came back from a conference last week where I presented some research on the...
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Rhea Miller on Cloudhand, Clenched Fist
To go back 30 years in one's writing is an exercise fraught with the possibility that the material is very dated, but this book, Cloudhand, Clenched Fist, by Rhea Miller, is a large exception.
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Interview with Paul Nelson on the Poetry Postcard Fest
Sam Hamill said “Over the past decade or so, no one has done more for poetry in the Pacific Northwest than has Paul Nelson.” With the Poetry Postcard Fest, now in its 19th year, that influence is spreading well beyond the Cascadia bioregion and all over the world.
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Anne Tardos on Cascadian Prophets
I am grateful today to bring you an interview with Anne Tardos on Cascadian Prophets, reading from and speaking about her newest book: The Always Already Absent Present.
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An interview with Jewell James
An interview with Jewell James, Master Carver and Director of the Sovereignty and Treaty Protection Office with the Lummi Nation
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Andrew Schelling on Forests, Temples, Glacial Rivers
Sanskrit translations, a deep bioregional sense of place and homages to dead (mostly) poet friends makes Andrew Schelling's new book a compelling distillation of subjects he’s been tracking for over 40 years. Author of “Tracks Along The Left Coast: Jaime D’Angulo & Pacific Coast Culture” and…
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Lawrence Paul Yuxweluptun Lets’lo:tseltun on Unceded Territories
This interview with Lawrence Paul Yuxweluptun Lets’lo:tseltun was originally recorded in August of 2016, just before the first election of the 45th president of the United States of America. The conversation took place in the midst of Yuxwelptun Lets'lo:tseltun's exhibition Unceded Territories…
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George Draffan on the Global Assault on Forests
George Draffan is a researcher, the head of the Public Information Network and the co-author of Strangely Like War: The Global Assault on Forests. He discussed the tax subsidies to corporations who deforest the world, the history of how industrial logging has exacerbated forest fires, and how...
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Interview with Harold Rhenisch on The Salmon Shanties: A Cascadian Song Cycle
Harold Rhenisch interviewed by Paul E Nelson about The Salmon Shanties: A Cascadian Song Cycle.
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Interview with Jane Falk and Mary Paniccia Carden on the book Joanne Kyger: A Poet in Place and Time
Jane Falk and Mary Paniccia Carden are co-editors of the anthology Joanne Kyger: A Poet in Place and Time, a new book of essays examining the work of the longtime Bolinas, California resident poet. Conducted October 5, 2024.
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Dr. Rudy Rÿser on the Center for World Indigenous Studies
An interview with Dr. Rudolph Rÿser, founder and board chair emeritus of the Center for World Indigenous Studies.
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Frank Abe on The Literature of Japanese-American Incarceration
An interview with Frank Abe, co-editor of the new anthology The Literature of Japanese American Incarceration, conducted September 20, 2024 by Paul E Nelson
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Barry McKinnon Interview (from July 2015)
Paul: You know, you moved up here and one of the first things you did as a teacher in Prince George - was it UNBC at the time when you moved here – the University of Northern British Columbia? Barry: No, it was the College of New Caledonia. Paul: And you were teaching English in a welding class?...
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Jerome Rothenberg Interview from 2001
Jerome Rothenberg was a legendary poet, translator and anthologist. His work on various poetry anthologies, including Poems for the Millennium were an inspiration for our Cascadian Zen series. He died on April 21, 2024 and we're presenting this archive audio of the interview conducted in November...
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Cecil Giscombe Interview
Cecil Giscombe talks about his friendship with BC poet, the late Barry McKinnon, about how people in the US consider Canadian poets and about his own work in an interview conducted by Paul E Nelson June 23, 2024 in Prince George, BC.
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Robert Michael Pyle Interview
Bob met me at the retro Atomic Motel and we talked for over an hour about his new book, the poems in it, his childhood, bioregionalism, his trip to Cuba, Vladimir Nabokov's notion via biographer Brian Boyd of "attending to the individuating detail" of one's life (an upgrade from the same notion...
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ABOUT THIS SHOW
Interviews with Cascadian creative luminaries about the practice of poetry and deepening connections to place, self and the present moment.
HOSTED BY
Paul E. Nelson
CATEGORIES
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Frequently Asked Questions
How many episodes does Cascadian Prophets have?
Cascadian Prophets currently has 90 episodes available on PodParley. New episodes are automatically indexed when they're published to the podcast feed.
What is Cascadian Prophets about?
Interviews with Cascadian creative luminaries about the practice of poetry and deepening connections to place, self and the present moment.
How often does Cascadian Prophets release new episodes?
Cascadian Prophets has 90 episodes. Check the episode list to see recent publication dates and frequency.
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You can listen to Cascadian Prophets on PodParley by clicking any episode. We provide an embedded audio player for direct listening, and you can also subscribe via your preferred podcast app using the RSS feed.
Who hosts Cascadian Prophets?
Cascadian Prophets is created and hosted by Paul E. Nelson.
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